George Herbert Walker School of Business & Technology

Business Sustainability in Action

On May 7, 2012

This Spring the Walker School of Business welcomed to Webster Yolanda Kakabadse, president of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) International as our 2012 Global Leader in Residence. Yolanda taught us many things, among those how to do business within our environment while leaving the smallest footprint. Here is one of the a Sustainability Action Plan for a business based on the 10 Principles of One Planet living she shared with us.

Yolanda say One Planet Living uses ecological footprinting as its key indicator of sustainability while also promotes the idea that living sustainably should mean a better quality of life. We hope you share it within your organization because it can also mean a better quality of business. (more…)

By The Light of a Supermoon

On May 4, 2012

by Dr. Benjamin Ola. Akande, dean
George Herbert Walker School of Business & Technology

This weekend the largest full moon of 2012 will light the night sky. On Saturday May 5 the moon will be at its closest point in its orbit with us putting it a mere 221,801 miles away. Some call this perigee full moon a “supermoon”. I call it this year’s biggest and brightest reminder for the U.S. to shine by making its own moon goal.

For me moon goals are a reference to that amazing day when man first landed and walked on the moon. It was a stretch of many people’s imaginations to see the dream come to fruition. Technology and the times were the biggest hurdles. In the year prior the U.S. had watched in horror as assassins killed a civil rights leader and a presidential candidate. Families waited in anguish for news of their loved ones fighting overseas in a little known country named Vietnam. And closer to home hundreds clashed with police over politics and personal freedom. Despite these tribulations the nation came together to watch Neil Armstrong step on the surface of another planet and to relish in a nation reaching its goal.

Unfortunately more and more people are shying away from setting the bar too high. In a recent survey of 1400 chief executive officers from America’s top corporations, 56 percent of those surveyed say they have become more risk averse. They report a growing level of trepidation and a higher level of fear when it comes to taking chances. We live in a time where success is the only option, where there is a growing level of intense scrutiny of the performance of leaders and where very little forgiveness is given those who fail. At times like these, it is understandable how a virtue like courage can take a backseat. Yet excessive and prolonged risk adverse behavior can eventually affect the growth and prosperity of any viable business. The impact is being felt on our psyche and as we become more focused on avoiding risk, we virtually guarantee our own failure. That might be okay for some. But even if our leaders are afraid to fail, we must find a way to succeed.

This year, as we edge closer to a presidential election, we need to make a permanent impression on our society. Like Armstrong’s footprint on the moon’s surface our impression should be one that is never brushed away and one that is still revered decades after it’s made. What would we attempt if there was no chance of failure? What moon goal would we set if the sky was our limit? (more…)

Tagged with: business • education • entrepreneurial • leadership • supermoon

Leading The Future: Yolanda Kakabadse

On April 30, 2012

Yolanda Kakabadse, Walker School 2012 Global Leader in Residence

Activist and global leader Yolanda Kakabadse says defending the environment is a passion which started to burn in her while she was in her 20′s. 30 years later her passion has taken her around the world from serving as the Minister of Environment for the Republic of Ecuador to the presidency of the World Conservation Union, from board membership for the World Resource Institute to a co-chairmanship for the Environmental Sustainability Task Force of the United Nations’ Millennium Project. In January 2010 Ms. Kakabadse became president of World Wildlife Fund (WWF) International, a position that only solidified her status as one of the most prominent environmental leaders of our time.

In April 2012 she joined us at Webster University as the 2012 Global Leader in Residence for the Walker School of Business and shared her expertise with us and our world.

Tagged with: conservation • Fox News • global • KDSK • KTVI • NPR • sustainability • United Nation's Millennium Project • World Conservation Union • World Wildlife Fund (WWF) International

7-Eleven for a 24/7 World: Leading Transformation

On April 27, 2012

by Dr. Benjamin Ola. Akande, dean
George Herbert Walker School of Business & Technology
(introduction of Joe DePinto, president/CEO, 7-Eleven, at Webster University on April 18, 2012)

Joe DePinto, president/CEO, 7-Eleven

Some people lead by power –be it of their mind or by their might. Some lead by example and give those in their charge a blueprint on how to succeed. Leadership for some is the ability to confront issues and master challenges. And for others it is the skill to keep calm and carry on no matter what is thrown at them. For our speaker tonight leadership is something much more. Yes Joe DePinto leads by example and has show the world his ability to turn even the most difficult challenges in business into opportunities. But Joe’s leadership goes deeper. It goes to the core of his role as CEO of the world’s largest operator of convenience stores. And it goes to the core of 7-Eleven’s corporate culture. Joe leads by first serving. (more…)

Tagged with: 7-Eleven • convenience • Gamestop • leadership • PepsiCo • Thornton Oil • West Point

7-Eleven CEO Speaks at Webster

On April 11, 2012

7-Eleven is more than home to Big Gulps and Slurpees. What started out as an ice house in Texas 85 years ago is now the world’s largest operator of convenience stores. Making sure 44,700 stores in 16 countries stay that way is the Walker Speaker Series next presenter, president and CEO Joe DePinto.

Joe DePinto, president/CEO, 7-Eleven

RSVP now for this free event Wednesday April 18, 2012 at Webster University in Webster Groves, MO.

Before being appointed chief executive of 7-Eleven in 2005, DePinto was president of GameStop Corporation. He also has held executive positions at PepsiCo, Inc. and Thornton Oil Corporation. A native of Chicago, Ill., DePinto earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering management from the United States Military Academy at West Point and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Tagged with: 7-Eleven • Big Gulp • convenience stores • Joe DePinto • Slurpees

Remembering George

On April 9, 2012

Dr. George Slusarz

We have lost one of our own. On Friday, April 6 Dr. George Slusarz, assistant professor, in the business department at the George Herbert Walker School of Business & Technology passed.

You may have known George as a member of our faculty. Colleagues may have known him as a member of Webster’s Faculty Salary and Fringe committee. Our students knew George as a down-to-earth, always available instructor who taught them in class, served as their UG Accounting Program Director, their advisor in the Accounting Club and as their one-time internship director.

We knew George as a great friend who dedicated to his work and Webster. (more…)

Bridge Over Troubled Waters

On April 6, 2012

by Dr. Benjamin Ola. Akande, dean, George Herbert Walker School of Business & Technology

The Eads Bridge

When I arrived in St. Louis, in the summer of 2000, I discovered a remarkable city home to 91 municipalities on the shores of the mighty Mississippi River. It is a place described by demographers as the northernmost southern city and the southernmost northern city. It is a city that because its ethnicity, geography, and attitudes all place it uniquely in the middle of America.

In 1904 St. Louis did the impossible by hosting the World’s Fair and the Olympics simultaneously. The Show Me State showed the world that St. Louisians are creatively innovative, resilient and purposeful. St. Louis is known for many things like the world champion Cardinals, Ted Drewes’ concretes, toasted ravioli and provel cheese. It is also renowned for the Eads Bridge, which was once the largest suspension bridge in the country. Like the Brooklyn Bridge, its construction relied on sinking great caissons to unprecedented depths into the river below.

(more…)

Tagged with: bridges • Eads Bridge • inclusiveness • Simon and Garfunkel

Closing the Muni Analytic Gap

On April 5, 2012

By Richard Ryffel
originally published in The Bond Buyer

In the 20-plus years I’ve been in the public finance business, I’ve always been surprised at how little academic research has been done on our markets. Compared to the corporate bond or equity markets, the municipal bond market has attracted as little attention from scholars as it attracts from most business school graduates.

Maybe some think the industry isn’t as sexy as some other fields of finance. This, even though Sherman McCoy, that “Master of the Universe,” was a municipal bond salesman.

I think quite the contrary. I believe the industry is exciting and becoming even more so. I think our market is deserving of more study and that the conclusions warrant greater consideration amongst practitioners.

With the introduction of many new products over the years — variable-rate demand bonds, auction-rate securities, swaps, index floaters, tender-option bonds, Build America Bonds, and direct placements, to name a few — the industry has new markets ripe for investigation and comparison. (more…)

Tagged with: bond insurance market • bond market • EMMA • equity markets • Municipal Securities

Dr. Debbie Psihountas Named ACE Fellow

On March 30, 2012

Dr. Debbie Psihountas, Walker School associate professor of finance

Webster University Provost and Senior Vice President Julian Schuster today announced that Dr. Debbie Psihountas, associate professor of finance in the University’s George Herbert Walker School of Business & Technology, has been named an ACE Fellow for academic year 2012-2013. Dr. Psihountas is one of only 57 people throughout U.S. higher education chosen for this honor.

“We celebrate Debbie’s achievement and see her selection for one of the highest awards in academics as yet another example of Webster’s deliberate path toward achieving global academic and operational excellence,” Dr. Schuster said upon making the announcement. External approval of our faculty like this from ACE validates our approach and commitment to attracting, retaining and developing the best class of faculty in the world. It is another living testimony to the high quality of our programs, our students and our faculty.

ACE is the major coordinating body for all of the nation’s higher education institutions. The ACE Fellows Program strengthens American higher education by identifying, then preparing, promising senior faculty and administrators like Dr. Psihountas for advanced positions in college and university administration. Of the more than 1,700 participants in the first 47 years of the program, more than 300 have become chief executive officers and more than 1,100 have become provosts, vice presidents or deans.

Dr. Psihountas joined Webster University in August 2001 and has served as chair of the business department, in addition to serving as acting chair of business/management programs for Webster’s campus in Geneva, Switzerland. She holds a bachelor’s degree in International Business, an MBA (Quantitative Analysis) and a Ph.D. in Finance from the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Psihountas has been recognized as one of St. Louis’ Most Inclusive Leaders in 2009, and as a Woman of Achievement by the University of Missouri-St. Louis Hellenic Spirit Foundation. (more…)

Tagged with: academic • ACE Fellow • American Council on Education • business • higher education • leadership